Hooray, it is July! And we all know what that means, right? Oh no, I don't mean that middle of summer outdoor activity crap. Who needs barbecues, pools, road trips, and bike rides when you can sit and watch Hallmark's Christmas in July run of holiday sap so thick you need a direct insulin injection before the first ad break?
Well, as my wife loves these flicks, you know who is subjected to them as well! My blood sugar levels are way out of control as of now, I almost took a Metformin tablet as a last resort before I fell into a diabetic coma!
On the other hand, it seems to me that these movies are fairly quickly cranked out. The basic formula is always there: disgruntlement, lost love, tragedy, a touch of magic, a happy ending, and an endless supply of ex soap stars and unheard-of-in-America Canadian actors. Occasionally they toss in a really old face that only people born before 1980 would recognize, just to test us.
Coming soon: Bryan Moore's entry that Hallmark will have no choice but to rush into production, especially since I'm holding the sap department's firstborn hostage. This is a sure-win!
Act 1: In the town of Darl, located in some snowy yet unnamed state in order to hide its obvious Canadian locale, everybody is just miserable. The mayor, played by William Shatner, is missing a piece to his jigsaw puzzle, and is making his whole staff search for it. His assistant's assistant Heather (mystery Canadian 1), is so full of problems that I pondered making this a mini-series! She doesn't know her mom, her 3 kids are nice but pretty uninteresting so far, and she let her college sweetheart Steve go decades earlier due to mistaking his cold sore for full-fledged herpes! On top of that, her "uncle" (Martin Short) is the eccentric owner of Darl's Chickens, the local diner. For some reason, the diner is about to be shut down by mega-poultry king Bluto's.
Act 2: The mayor's office is all scurrying to find the puzzle piece as the whole town just descends into a general hell. Steve, the handsome hatchet man for Bluto's (ex soap star 1), arrives in town and literally bumps into Heather on the sidewalk. Heather, thinking she has now gotten herpes, blasts Steve verbally in front of the entire town. At home, her 3 boring brats climb all over her as she ponders if she was too hard on Steve as well as worrying about her "uncle" and the diner closure. Insulin injection 1 should be about now.
Act 3: The mayor threatens to fire the whole staff if the piece is not found by the week's end. Heather's direct boss (bland blond middle-aged Canadian actor 1) scolds her for not finding it herself. She threatens to quit, but the mayor admires her spunk and makes her his personal puzzle assistant. She runs into Steve at Darl's Chickens and reluctantly agrees to sit with him for a chicken lunch. He tries to educate her on herpes 1 being a lot different than herpes 2, but as she opted out of high school health class, she is pretty clueless. Her "uncle" cheerfully dismisses the idea that he's about to lose his business after Steve boasts that he will succeed, after which 5 cold sores mysteriously appear around Steve's mouth. Heather giggles as we fade to ad.
Act 4: Convinced Steve needs help, Bluto (played by Falconetti himself, William Smith), arrives in town to physically and mentally overpower the "uncle". However, he finds that he is out of his league, so he decides to create a hysteria of rabbititis infesting the chickens. Before she can worry about that, Heather finds herself walking along the edge of some pond lamenting to nobody in particular about her lame kids and lacking love life. Steve watches creepily from the bushes, scratching at his cold sores as he realizes what an ass he's been. Insulin shot 2 here.
Act 5: Darl's Chickens is officially closed pending a health department investigation. Steve protests to Bluto, who doesn't give a crap about protests. The mayor makes a personal plea to Bluto to back off, but Bluto, having heard about the puzzle piece, threatens to burn it unless he gets his way. The "uncle" merely smiles in his creepy way the whole time. Steve apologizes for his actions and attitude to him, and the cold sores quickly disappear. The next morning, Steve stands up to his boss and reveals the false rabbititis ploy to the health department. Steve is fired and punched just for being a sap, but the mayor hires him on the spot. All looks like it will be happy until one of Heather's unnamed twerps disapepars.
Act 6: The whole damn town looks for the nameless dweeb in vain. Thankfully, Steve's blind 3-legged dog Lucky finds the kid in a well and carries the gender nonspecific child (for all you PC snowflakes out there!) to safety. One of the other kids, hanging in the mayor's office for no reason, finds the missing piece on the floor. Steve and Heather get engaged, provided they don't kiss on the mouth ever. The creepy "uncle" then reveals that he's really Heather's mom and magically transforms from Martin Short into Meredith Baxter, giving some outlandish excuse and sob story that nobody outside of Hallmark would buy into. Bluto decides he can compete with Darl's Chickens on his own without dirty tricks. Suddenly, the town Christmas tree lights up, reminding us that it is a CHRISTMAS movie! The geek threesome suddenly find mysterious gifts under a mysterious tree that wasn't there in act 2, everyone laughs one of those freeze-frame CHiPS laughs that no audience ever bought, and it is a wrap!
I think this movie will be a smash...as in people will smash their TV screens after just 1 viewing.
